Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a Return to Oral Question asked by Ms. Green on February 8, 2017, regarding student instructional hours in schools. Ms. Green asked what discussions have been held with Alberta Education about delivering the Alberta curriculum in fewer hours than prescribed for the high school level.

Mr. Speaker, staff from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment are in regular contact with staff from Alberta Education and have considered the potential impact of changes in instructional hours on course curriculum and student outcomes.

Students in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to welcome all the representatives from the Native Women's Association here today, particularly Ms. Shirley Kisoun as well as Ms. Mabel Brown, and a former resident of Inuvik as well, Michele Lavoie. Thank you and welcome and I'm glad you can enjoy the proceedings. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have a Minimum Wage Committee. I believe they met towards the end of 2016. They have met twice already in 2017. They have a couple of more meetings coming up. They are going to be looking at the data and the impact of what we did, increasing that minimum wage in June of 2015, and doing a review. Then they will be bringing recommendations to me, as Minister, and we will look at those recommendations. We will share it with committee and move on from there. So, right now, it's being conducted.

I understand that the group that brought forward the reports and the study that was done in 2015 did receive funding from the Anti-Poverty Fund to conduct that research. It is up to the employers, though, if they want to put forth paying their employees on a living wage or the minimum wage. Some of the employers that do decide to pay a living wage do it for many reasons. One of them is possibly to keep employees for long periods of time rather than spending more money on training and recruitment, so it is up to the employers on what they want to do. They do have to pay a minimum wage, which is...

Yes, we can work with the Aurora College partners, ask them for what kind of orientation packages that they give to students for support that they need through post-secondary education. We will look at all three campuses to see what they provide and provide it to the Member should his constituents either want to go to Aurora College in Inuvik, Thebacha in Fort Smith, or the Yellowknife campus here in Yellowknife.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I just want to commend the Member from Sahtu, the honourable Member from Sahtu, for actually making that trip to Fort Smith and to the Thebacha campus to check on his constituents who are seeking post-secondary education. In all of our campuses across the NWT, we do have counsellors who are able to help students should they be going through some difficult times or having challenges going to post-secondary education. We also have focused on life skills. This is the first time that some of the students might be away from home and in a different community. We...

We have given every school in the Northwest Territories an opportunity to participate in this three-year pilot. The deadline actually isn't until the end of March. I do believe our department is still working with some schools to develop a plan, but the deadline isn't until the end of March. At that time, we can inform the Member of how many schools are actually participating in this pilot.

We are in the initial stages right now of developing that terms of reference. Once that terms of reference is done, we will bring it before Cabinet, and then, after Cabinet, we will take it before committee. I don't have an exact timeline when that will be, but as soon as we get it, we will get it out to committee for feedback so that we can start this review as soon as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, because we are going to be doing this foundational review of the Aurora College, it will be done externally. We will get a third party to come in and do the review. The department, as well as the Aurora College, will get to have input in terms of the foundational review itself, but it will be done externally. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, that is what this foundational review is going to look at. It might even revamp into a whole new program within the social work area or even in the education area or based on our Skills 4 Success Action Plan, it can provide more program services within our three campuses as well as our learning centres.

The Member is saying that I am scolding these students, but I am trying to encourage them to graduate and become educated residents in the North so that they can become part of our public service and also teach and help our students in our smallest communities...